


The Monster

by Reinette_de_la_Saintonge



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Character Death In Dream, Character Study, F/M, Major Character Death in Dream, Self-Reflection, Simcoe being Simcoe, season 2 episode 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13353102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge/pseuds/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge
Summary: They say it is love that distinguishes man from the animal kingdom; love and reason. But how can reason and love coexist? He finds it impossible to believe that, for it is love that drives man beyond reason, renders him insane and pushes him to the limits of his being, where he must ultimately shatter, crash, like the broken jugs she collects off the taproom floor every day, broken by a careless hand ignorant of the soul’s tempest-toss’d turmoil.





	The Monster

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, a big thank you goes to all conductors, bus drivers, attendants and railway staff who make a smooth commute possible and thus make sure I have a good time writing! So now, without further ado, enjoy a story that should really be called "A Week's Commute":

_L'amour est enfant de bohème,_  
_Il n'a jamais, jamais connu de loi;_  
_Si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime;_  
_Si je t'aime, prends garde à toi! (Prends garde à toi!)_  
_Si tu ne m'aimes pas,_  
_Si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime (Prends garde à toi!)_  
_Mais si je t'aime, si je t'aime_  
_Prends garde à toi!_

( _L'amour est un oiseau rebelle_ , Georges Bizet, _Carmen_ , 1875)

It is such an unnecessary thing, the heart.

As useful as the Royal Navy on dry land or Edmund Hewlett in every fibre of his being.

Why does the pang in his chest not subside? Physically, he is unhurt, yes, but he is in pain, his body tormented by a scorching flame that consumes him from within, feverish and stinging.

He has tried to think of other things for the past two hours, but to no avail, the sensation in his heart won’t go away.

Below his window, all of Setauket lies quiet and sleepy. The tavern has closed for the night and is eerily quiet. During the day, the place is abuzz with the sounds of people, chatter, rough laughter when one of the men makes a particularly rude joke, the occasional fiddle creaking under the fingers of an unskilled player who fancies himself a Mozart.

As far as he knows, he is the only one presently awake. Or maybe, Anna Strong is still awake, too, pacing up and down the tiny northeast bedroom just as he does, though not for the same reasons. No, he mustn’t think of her, and yet he does, imagines her tender bosom heaving, sighing, her hands wringing in despair with the grace of a Grecian or Roman statue.

It is she who keeps him awake.

It is always Anna, ever since his arrival in Setauket.

She has wounded him, pierced his heart with the dagger of her eyes.

They say it is love that distinguishes man from the animal kingdom; love and reason. But how can reason and love coexist? He finds it impossible to believe that, for it is love that drives man beyond reason, renders him insane and pushes him to the limits of his being, where he must ultimately shatter, crash, like the broken jugs she collects off the taproom floor every day, broken by a careless hand ignorant of the soul’s tempest-toss’d turmoil.

There is this novel he has heard some German fellow talk about when he had been in Philadelphia- some Hessian officer he had met one night out staring gloomily into his half-empty glass had called him over to his table and, drunk, ordered another round for himself and his guest. Patting him on the shoulder with the worst pseudo-paternal condescendence imaginable, he had asked him (his English was quite passable) why he looked so sour-faced with all the joys a man needed within arm’s reach of him- alcoholic beverages of all variations, food and girls, if one only had the coin to pay for it.

He assured him that his pay would buy him any of these delights if only he fancied them. Then why are you not happy, the man had prodded further, while he had tried to design an escape plan in his head that did not involve beating the man into next Wednesday. Already court-martialled, another reprimand for a potentially lethal tavern brawl would probably have more severe consequences than being shackled to a desk and signing forms all day under the mocking scrutiny of a stripling barely outgrown his schoolboy years.

Helped along by the jug of horse-piss they tried to convince him was ale (and if it was, they had watered it with things that certainly were not water), he had made vague allusions to a lady who had robbed him of his heart only to give her own away to another man.

The German had chuckled and pointed out a book to him called _Die Leiden des jungen Werthers_. He didn’t know it, but apparently, it sold rather well in Germany and was about a young man in a similar situation, slighted by the woman he loves, he commits suicide in the end.

Apparently it was all the rage for young men to dress like him and imitate the unfortunate’s crime.

Weaklings, weaklings all who aimed a pistol at their head. ‘Twas the easiest way out of this earthly purgatory to be sure, to terminate one’s time dwelling upon this hellish earth, going without even _fighting_.

Oh, he had fought. Fought for her, and would have, not quite unlike Werther, taken a ball for her that day when he had attempted to save her honour by duelling Woodhull.

Clearly, Woodhull, this incompetent nuisance, this sorry joke of a man, had never fired a shot before and was no great danger to a man like him, accustomed to aiming and shooting, but the slight possibility of him being graced by a silly, random moment of accidental luck had remained. And he knows he would not have turned away.

He would have taken the ball (in his fantasy it flies at him very slowly, with enough time for him to make the conscious decision not to move, stand steadfast like a tin soldier before the ball takes up impossible speed again and hits him squarely in his chest) with his head held high. For one moment, he stands, his body having not yet realised what had just happened, before suddenly it does and he falls to the ground, terror and surprise setting in.

Even like this, he would have forced himself not to show any emotion. Perhaps he would allow himself a last defiant smirk, knowing that, even if he lays dying, Woodhull will pay for having shot a royal officer, will die a more messy death hanged by the neck in front of a crowd of spectators, and therefore, he wants Woodhull to have a memory to hold on to in his last moments, he wants to be the last thing the cabbage farmer sees before there is no more air left in his lungs and he dies, very slowly in front of a cheering mob with no one there to end his suffering quickly by pulling his legs.

Old Woodhull, Baker and Eastin would have arrested him on the spot. And while he is dragged away, crying, pleading as cowards do, afraid to die, Anna, who has looked on in silence, rushes to his side and kneels in the cold snow beside him, dragging his head into her lap to make him more comfortable. With her hands framing his face, he feels triumphant. He has won, even if he is about to lose his life.

Frantic, she pulls a handkerchief from her pocket, lily-white, and dabs it onto the wound in his chest. She positions his hand over the handkerchief and presses down on it with both her hands in order to staunch the bleeding, while she frantically pleads with him to stay with her.

But all her pleas, soft caresses and attempts to help him are of no use. The crimson spreads across his chest, his hand, and her fingers, too, horribly beautiful. He will die in red, even if he does not wear his coat. As his eyes grow weary, and he has to close them half-blinking in short intervals, she starts sobbing and tries to bargain with the Lord Almighty for the deliverance of his soul from evil injury and back to the living, He, however, has long ago stopped to care for the Captain and will let him die, to transcend to the dark bowels of the earth, as has been prophesised to him by many a man, to become a demon and the devil’s adjutant and apprentice.

Before that happens however, he shall be a happy man, for the first time in his life, happy and die in her arms, her eyes the last thing he sees, before he slowly closes them, not wanting to burden her with this task after his death and concentrates on the serenity of the moment, the warmth of her body, the soft touch of her fingers that stroke him comfortingly and the shaky little voice trying to assure him everything is alright, that help will come any moment now and he will live, even though she knows as well as he that he must perish since the blood loss is already too heavy.

Dying goes about slowly. Some men he has seen struggle for minutes, hours, days, weeks, dying from vile infections infesting their wounds or a plague of some sort, things that are prevalent in camp and barracks during the winter months, cough, fever, some more, some less contagious.

As his breathing slows, he hears her sob. He opens his eyes again, blinded somewhat by the bright daylight and the snow, and looks at her.

“Anna.”

He smiles, best as he can, and is surprised by her reaction. Still trembling and sobbing, she shifts under him and then bows down to brush his lips with a gentle kiss. In the same instant, his heart stops forever and the last thing he feels before being thrown into the eternal dark abyss of whatever may come after death is her kiss, gentle like a rose-petal sailing through the air to the ground.

They do not send his body home to his mother or his godfather for them to bury (and what good would that do, shipping a dead man preserved like a sour pickle across the ocean?).

All he would do is frighten the ladies- his mother, his godfather’s wife and their ward, what a waste of money and time. They could inter him here, in Setauket, on the spot where he died and come spring, Anna would bring fresh flowers to mark his gravesite every day.

And his ghost would be seen to glide smiling, o’er the fatal tide. And perhaps not-so-smilingly appear to certain others, torment Hewlett every night until the little major would, alongside his remaining horse, take a bite of an apple prepared for himself and leave this world to escape the wrath of the dead-

Hm. No. Hewlett hadn’t tried to steal Anna from him back then. Still, he would be no loss to anybody, not after all he has done now.

Why did he have to do this to him? Why did he take Anna away from him? There can be no peace between them until this issue is resolved, one or the other way, and Anna walks at his arm, not Hewlett’s.

Hewlett’s betrayal of his own captain aside, how could she hurt him so? What has he ever done to her? Has he not always shown her how much he loves her, offered her his room, carried her things, tried to be helpful at any given opportunity- why does she shy away from him and say such terrible things about him?

She thinks him cruel and heartless, a creature of lust and base intentions, when in truth, he is anything but. Has he not tried to save her honour? Has he not written poetry in her name (which she, granted, hadn’t read and would never do so, either)?

First the cabbage farmer, now Hewlett. It looks as if she deliberately seeks out men she knows he dislikes. O Anna, why must this siren be before his eyes every day, fated to behold but never to hold her in his arms?

She has been so hurtful of late. Has it to do with Hewlett’s _most unfortunate disappearance_? He did that. He did that for her. By God, he would do everything for this woman, this truculent, terrible beauty, who looks down on him while looking up to his face and tells him he is not half the man Hewlett is, that he is a bully who finds joy in intimidating others.

Is this what she truly sees in him? Does she not see the heart ablaze within his breast shine through the uniform, can she not feel the words in his eyes that remain unspoken, the praises in poetic verse unsung for fear she will slight him again?

He should not have let his urges overpower him when she had raged at him. Would he have hurt her? He had come to his senses when he had her pinned to the wall, like he would one of his privates, and felt somewhat ashamed. He ought not to have repaid her in coin for the emotional pain she had inflicted on him. It had been wrong, but she had wronged him, too.

And speaking of wrongs, she had come to his room, her eyes pleading, her dress low-cut and smelling of some scent she did not use every day working at the tavern and had huskily breathed his Christian name across her lips.

What man would not have melted like butter in the sun? The tragic goddess had come to him, petitioning him to free her beloved. Little did she know it was his design, and all his doing, that Hewlett is as good as dead now, if he isn’t already. It makes him feel triumphant, victorious, but the victory of having gotten rid of Hewlett, whose temporary replacement at least leaves him (and Anna) alone, tastes foul on his tongue.

Never would he have thought she had feelings of such intensity for Hewlett, Hewlett of all people.

She had come to him, his Anna, thinking she could seduce him, draped on the edge of his bed, that a quick toss and tumble in his room as reward for retrieving the major could make him bow in submission to her whims, her love for another man?

How could she be so cruel? How could she despise him so much, when all he ever did he had done to please her? Did she really think he was that deaf and dumb, reduced to lusting for her like some perverted old lecher, that his only goal was to _have_ her? He did not want her, not like this, at least.

Of course he has, though somewhat ashamed of himself for doing so, thought of it, how in different scenarios Anna would press herself against his chest and hungrily devour him with feverish kisses, moaning softly under his gradually emboldening caresses, allow him to worship her with his body, and later, spent, she would lie sleepily across his bare chest while he would caress her hair and fill the air with poetic praises of her body and soul.

Never could he have agreed to her bargain, never. It was no better than taking a woman by force in his eyes, and he would not become guilty of such a disgusting crime. She would have laid back motionlessly, closed her eyes and thought of _him_ and that would have been it, with no joy to be had in the act for either of them. 

And so, he had shown her to the door, hurt, telling her that he was not who she thought he was. Not a monster, not heartless, not entirely at least, but in the past weeks, he had felt his heart wither and die in his chest. It had died a hundred times before, and would another hundred times, would break and reassemble, like Prometheus assaulted by the eagle, and he would continue to live, until one day, the siren would shipwreck him for good.

Perhaps with every death and rebirth of his heart, a part of it died. It certainly felt this way.

In her eyes, he is a fiendish mis-creation of nature, the direct offspring of the devil, a brute and bully, all heartless and cold as stone.

He is not cold and he feels, too but sometimes, he wishes he was.

If only he could forget her, but he can’t. He loves her and _omnia vincit amor_ , doesn’t it?

He shall be victorious and teach her his love, acquaint her to the man she doesn’t see when she looks at him, one day he will succeed, for _militat omnis amans, et habet sua castra Cupido:_ _Anne, crede mihi, militat omnis amans_.

This is why he loves the ancient Romans, they speak to his heart, the thing he wishes to lie dead and un-quivering inside him sometimes.

Right now, it hurts again, thinking of how she has tried to make a fool of him. One day, she would realise, or at least he hopes she will, hopes, prays like a man gravely wounded in battle hopes for a miracle to rescue him, desperately hoping to survive against all odds.

Most men don’t. Dying in the field is a tedious affair; a ball, shrapnel, blade lodges in the body and they tumble to the ground, roaring in pain, where they ultimately go still under pained groans, either whimpering and professing their want for their mother or uttering an expletive. It is always that, either the mother or a random profanity, and then they die.

How ironic that he is presently more concerned for his mother’s life than his own. She has not been well for the past few years and some kind souls he has left with her sometimes write him about her state, sometimes she even writes herself, short letters in shaky handwriting that he recalls was once ornate and elegant when he was a boy.

She would have liked to see her son wedded before her death she had more or less insinuated or openly stated in several of her letters. He understands. In his mind, the old woman is present at a beautiful ceremony, his Anna clad in a gown he has picked for her, finer than everything she presently owns, her neck, arms and ears decked in the finest Indian diamonds, and (the scenery transforms) sometime later is, after him, the second to hold a little bundle, all big, dark eyes with an unruly tuft of reddish hair.

How sad he will not be able to give her that, first of all, they are separated by an ocean and by the time he returns she might perish while he is already on his way, with or without a bride to introduce to her as the new Mrs Simcoe and then there is Anna, who is still married to that unspeakable rebel bastard and more than unwilling to even so much as talk to him.

His mother wants the same thing he does, a family. After the death of his father and brother they had, the Admiral and his wife aside, no one left. More recently, he has acquired some sort of cousin who is not really a relation save for the fact that her aunt and guardian had married his godfather, but he doesn’t pay her much mind; if he remembers correctly, he has never even met her, though the Admiral only writes the most favourable things about the niece he acquired with his second marriage as part of his wife’s dowry.

While Katherine Simcoe wastes away from her affliction, he makes sure to never tell her anything that might distress her in his letters and pretends to be of good cheer, which makes him wonder if she even truly knows her son anymore, if she would recognise him, not the face, that was too much like his father’s, but crowned with her hair, his soul.

She doesn’t know about most things other than the weather, troop movements and some seemingly random personal things he chooses to feed her in order to make her believe he is well; what book he currently reads or that he enjoyed a dinner at Major André’s house in Philadelphia once.

So far, he has been most successful withholding everything from her, his injuries, his captivity even (“It seems my last letter must have been lost while I eagerly awaited your reply, which explains my long absence from your mail”) and his tortured heart, cut and bloodied without a chance of healing.

Curious how many things can be treated by doctors these days and how many others can’t.

A wound to the leg (such as his, though the ball is still buried in his flesh and could not be removed) can be mended and dressed and milk of the poppy prescribed against the pain; cold rags help against fever and tea made of sage leaves soothes a sore throat, but no doctor has as yet found out what his mother is suffering from and the cure against a heart severed by the swift blow of a woman who feels nought but contempt and repulsion for him.

Why does she hate him with such fervour, considers him so singularly lust-driven and dumb that she  thinks a low-cut dress and offering herself as some sort of sacrificial lamb to appease and win the favour of some cruel ancient deity could dull his senses into doing her bidding?

She knows nothing of love. She does not understand what purgatory he finds himself in.

He remembers her face, the falseness in her eyes, her trembling voice, designed to persuade him. Clearly, she thinks he is the monster he assured her he is not, the maiden-devouring dragon St George (Edmund) must slay to rescue the fair female in distress.

Does being called a monster (though the word was left unsaid on her part, the insinuation could not have been more clearly) make him one?

Is he one now, a lowly animal of the dark, a shadow-creature lusting for the blood of unsuspecting innocents? Is he no man, but a beast?

Has he mistaken his person all this while, looked in the mirror and taken his looks, a pair of eyes and ears, a nose and mouth, though none of these of the shapely kind, as confirmation that he is a man when in truth his looks deceived him, a mere shell to present to the outward world, underneath which the wild beast hides, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but thrice deadlier.

It must be so, he rules, and even if he truly is a man, no one believes him anyway; he may just as well serve them what they want to see, if only to be left in peace.

Why struggle against the current that is bound to drown you anyway? He is a monster.

And as such, the petty rules and regulations of society don’t apply to him. He can do as he pleases, for nobody expects a monster to be a courtly gentleman.

One day, Setauket will regret having unleashed him terribly, but they have done, have created a monster out of the love-broken human remains they have found dressed in the uniform of a captain.

He still loves.

A plan ripens inside him.

Oh the things he is prepared to do for her.

He must ensure Hewlett is dead and then he shall bring her the news of his demise personally. She will weep, fling herself against his chest and sob most heartbreakingly, and he shall comfort her.

With Hewlett gone and him as her comforter and protector, her eyes will turn to him, and she will realise how much he loved her all the while, how long he has waited for her to realise and they will be happy and leave this blasted place while Hewlett’s corpse rots away, devoured by the same maggots that Woodhull’s cabbage is rumoured to contain.

And Anna will never know.

Somehow, he wants to find Hewlett alive, because that means he will be able to undo him with his own hands as retribution for everything Hewlett has ever done to him, the court martial and his subsequent punishment as well as stealing his Anna from him.

A triumphant feeling rises within him and he smirks. Hewlett does not have long, should he still be alive and before he dies, he is going to relay to him his plans for Anna, to increase the pain he is going to inflict on this pathetic imitation of a major. And when he is dead, he shall bring his corpse back to Setauket, bound, flung across one of the horses and return it to Wakefield to dispose of as he sees fit. It is important Setauket sees the body.

The cruel murder of the garrison’s commander might even increase the pro-British sentiment in the town. Hewlett would die for the cause he had fought for- or at least had performed an unconvincing theatrical rendition of real soldiering in order to make people believe he had fought.

Once Hewlett is dead, his whole world will be better. Anna will love him. The cabbage farmer will be envious of him whenever he sees him and Anna walk through the town together. He will move Anna into Whitehall for the time being and enjoy Judge Woodhull’s frown of disapproval whenever he and his bride are near.

He will adore her, buy her ribbons for her hair, a ring for every finger, a necklace of amber, nay diamonds, for everything else would be unfit for her- and silken petticoats with flounces to the knee, although these charming accessories he might buy not exclusively with her in mind.

And then they will be happy, he will move her to England, to the estate of his godfather, to learn the ways of a proper lady (besides, this will set an ocean between her and her boy farmer who wears his produce for a head and whom he suspects to grow gherkins to compensate for other parts of his anatomy as well) and when the war is over he’ll return in full bloom, the triumphant victor over these rebel bastards and make a home for her in the area.

They will be respected members of the landed gentlefolk, a country squire and his lady, and it is only with her that he can imagine such a future, a host of children to flock around their mother’s skirts as they take their morning walk.

Nobody will ever call him a beast, monster or whatnot again, instead, people will doff their caps when he walks by and Anna will be well-respected too, not a tavern-wench scrubbing the vomit of dead drunk privates from the floor, she will have dancing shoes and dresses and hats and will travel to Bath and he will accompany her, even if he hates the pretended busy bustle of people indulging in faineance and would rather be out on his estate shooting pheasants or hunting deer with his loyal pack of dogs.

What insignificant price he has to pay to gain this phantasy in reality. Hewlett’s life weighs nothing in comparison to all the wonders that await him if only he slays the dragon and rescues the maiden.

Or is it the other way around?

He is the murdering savage, the monster, has he not discerned that by now through critical self-discourse? He doesn’t care, not anymore. If he truly is a beast, so be it, a beast who loves, who knows the pain of it and the sting of rejection, injured and fierce.

It is love that has made him so and only love can absolve him from this existence with the kiss of a fair princess or rather that of a woman spending most of her days fetching ale and cleaning tables.

The curse can be broken, he figures, his heart patched up, but it takes a little more bestiality to achieve that, his plot to work out and the ghoulish sight of Hewlett’s corpse, his murderous falchion smoking in his blood as he will parade the dead major through town.

He smiles to himself. For the moment he is happy to be a monster and happily he shall wait for the day the enchantment will be lifted and the beast, by a tender kiss on its fear-inspiring muzzle, transformed into a man.

Until this day comes (soon, he hopes, not so much because of the transformation but because of the kiss), he shall gladly provide the town of Setauket with image of the creature they have created.

Tomorrow, he shall ready his men and set for the rebel outpost. In the meantime, he will spend the night contemplating how to best extinguish Hewlett’s life.

A quick stab with his bayonet perhaps?

After all, no beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: the views expressed by Simcoe in this story are not necessarily my own. We all know his outlook on life (and death) is quite- different.
> 
> The quote in the beginning comes from the opera "Carmen". Simcoe and Carmen actually share a few similarities.
> 
> "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) (first published in German in 1774; an English translation, "The Sorrows of Young Werther", followed in 1779) became one of the most popular books of its time and people even dressed up as Lotte and Werther. The copycat suicides are no invention. In German, the term "Werther-Effekt", named for the novel's main character, describes the correlation between the extensive media coverage of a suicide (real or fictional) and a subsequent surge in suicides in the general public.
> 
> "And his ghost would be seen..." etc.: paraphrase of the line "And her ghost was seen to glide, Smiling o'er the fatal tide." from Thomas Moore's (1779-1852) poem "Glendalough By That Lake Whose Gloomy Shore". Saint Kevin, a hermit, is being followed around by a young woman whom he tries to avoid, being a man of God. In the end, he pushes her down the cliffs into the lake and she dies, but as he repents his deed, her ghost appears.  
> Fun fact: Kevin is a real saint, the patron of blackbirds and the Archdiocese of Dublin (Catholic Church). Also, Thomas Moore's death day is the 25th of February 1852, which would have been Simcoe's 100th birthday.
> 
> "Terrible beauty": term used by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) in his poem "Easter 1916" to describe the Easter Rising in Ireland. From Simcoe's perspective, this seemed like a good term to describe Anna.
> 
> "Omnia vincit amor": "love conquers all", Vergil, Eclogues X.
> 
> "Militat omnis amans, et habet sua castra Cupido: Anne, crede mihi, militat omnis amans.": "every lover is a soldier, and has his camp in Cupid: believe me, Anna, every lover is a soldier." Ovid, Amores, Lib. 1, Par. 9. Originally, the person addressed is "Atticus", but I changed it to Anna to suit the story. In case the declension of "Anna" is wrong, please tell me!
> 
> Katherine Simcoe's handwriting: this is based on a personal experience. When I called a folder of letters by Adam Smith (1723-1790) to the reading room, I was astonished to see how a letter written years before his death bore practiced, elegant handwriting while one written close to his death looked like it had been written by a strained hand, the letters looking like those of a child trying to write clearly. It was a very touching, sad and intimate experience that really makes you realise the people of days gone by were people like us, not just margins in history books.
> 
> The cousin by marriage: none other than Ms Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim. Little does Simcoe know that one day... ;)
> 
> There are many allusions to Shakespeare's "Richard III" in the story (the last line "no beast so fierce..." is a direct quote from act I, scene II, Lady Anne to Richard by the way) and Hewlett's treatment after his death in Simcoe's fantasy is reminiscent of the treatment reportedly given to Richard's body after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. 
> 
> Ribbons/rings/necklace of amber/petticoat with flounces to the knee: from the Scottish folk song "The Bonny Lass of Fyvie" in which a captain woos a girl and promises her among other things these items if she marries him, but she refuses him. In some versions of the song, he eventually dies of a broken heart.
> 
> "And when the war is over he'll return in full bloom": line from the Irish folk song "The Enniskillen Dragoons". The line is a nod to Simcoe's son Francis Gwillim Simcoe, who served as lieutenant in the 27th (Inniskilling) of Foot, who, like the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons were stationed at Enniskillen, in what is today Northern Ireland. Inniskilling is a historic spelling variety of Enniskillen by the way.
> 
> As always all references made to Simcoe's personal history before coming to Setauket are drawing from the realms of history, not "TURN"'s weird alternative narrative. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the read and can forgive me the tediously long notes. Feel free to share your thoughts with me in the comments, critique is greatly appreciated!
> 
> Lastly, thank you for reading!


End file.
